


We're Gonna Play a Game

by Kellyscams



Series: Whumptober [1]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, M/M, Manipulation, Mention of torture, Past Abuse, Russian Roulette, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26797126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kellyscams/pseuds/Kellyscams
Summary: Captain America is forced into playing a twisted game of Russian Roulette by the Winter Soldier.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Whumptober [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1954231
Comments: 25
Kudos: 88
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	We're Gonna Play a Game

**Author's Note:**

> For whumptober2020  
> Prompt No 3." MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY  
> Manhandled | Forced to their Knees | Held at Gunpoint

Light glints off the bullet as the Winter Soldier holds it between his fingers. There’s a smirk on his face. It’s wrong. All wrong. It deepens when he fits the bullet into the chamber of the revolver he holds in the other hand. The metal one. 

Once the bullet is snug in its home, the Winter Soldier jerks the cylinder closed and spins it. 

“We’re gonna play a game,” he says, setting the gun on the table between the two of them. “I’m sure you’ve heard of it.”

“Steve...” Bucky whispers when the Winter Soldier aims the barrel of the gun right between his eyes. A bead of sweat crawls down Bucky’s face. “Please. You don’t have to do this.” 

He isn’t sure how he got here. Wherever here is. A Hydra base, he assumes. One of their interrogation rooms, probably. With both him and Steve in folding chairs and one table between them. Last Bucky remembers, he was fighting with a muzzled Winter Soldier in D.C.. Natasha was shot. Sam had taken the high ground to give them cover. And when that fucking mask fell off and Bucky saw the face behind it, well.

He froze. He just stood there, too horrified, too shocked, too dazed to do anything other than stare at the Winter Soldier. Fast. Strong. Metal arm. Steve Rogers. 

Maybe they tasered him or maybe Rumlow hit him on the back of the head or, fuck it all, maybe he just fainted. However they did it, Bucky’s here now. In this room made out of stone and concrete. With just two chairs, a table, and a gun. Alone with Steve.

They haven’t even bothered restraining Bucky. 

That isn’t any wonder. He was never a match for Steve, never worthy enough to take his shield and Captain America mantle. 

Right now, Bucky’s fairly sure if his ribs aren’t broken, they’re at least bruised. His ankle definitely has a sprain and the gash across his forehead is still bleeding, blood drying to the right side of his face. 

This is a nightmare.

One he can’t wake from.

One where Steve Rogers is the fucking Winter Soldier. The cold-blooded assassin most of the intelligence community doesn’t even believe exists. Credited for more than two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years. More kills for Hydra than anyone. 

The man Bucky and the Avengers have been hunting for the past six months after he shot Nick Fury. Fury survived but only a handful of people are privy to that information. 

“Here’s how we play,” Steve begins. “First, I ask a question--”

“Please...”

“--and if you don’t want to answer it.” He puts his index finger against his temple and mimics pulling the trigger. “I’ll let you give the cylinder a spin between questions so you have a sporting chance. One in six odds isn’t so bad, is it?”

His voice is all wrong. Gone is that warmth and tender kindness. That inspiration that clung to every word whenever he spoke about something important. The one that made Bucky fall in love with him when they were a couple’ve punks runnin’ around the streets of Brooklyn. Now it’s cold. Calculating. Sadistically pleased with the way Bucky squirms across from him.

“Steve, please, don’t make me do this.” 

Bucky closes his eyes when Steve picks up the gun again and cocks the hammer. The sound it makes is nauseating. A tremble shoots up Bucky’s spine and makes his head spin. The chair feels unsteady beneath him. He might fall off of it. 

“You are _going_ to pick up this gun, Captain,” he says. Almost cheerfully. “You _will_ put it against your head. And you _will_ either answer my questions or pull the trigger. Your choice.” 

“I don’t understand--”

“I find the rules to be quite simple.”

“--what happened to you?”

“You’re asking the wrong questions, Captain. But, if you prefer to start that way, I suppose I can allow it. It isn’t what happened to me but rather what didn’t happen to you.” 

Eyes drifting down to the gun on the table, Bucky quickly calculates the odds of him grabbing it before Steve can. But then what? Does he shoot Steve Rogers? Can he shoot Steve Rogers? Probably not. In his current state, Bucky would be no sooner able to get the upper hand than he could convince Steve that they were in love once. A lifetime ago. 

“The doctor,” Bucky whispers, gaze still on the gun. “Dr. Zola. He found you, didn’t he? After you fell from the train.”

Steve had shoved Bucky out of the way and took the brunt of the Hydra weapon’s blast. He’d saved Bucky in doing so but. 

They looked for him. Bucky didn’t need to convince anyone to try. They’d’ve never left Captain America to the icy depths of that canyon without at least trying to find him. If only it’d had been Bucky who fell. If only.

“That’s right,” Steve answers with a sneer. “ _Oh_...” he breathes, “the things he did to your friend will keep you up at night for weeks and weeks. Just like him. Kept awake for days at a time. Starved. Beaten.” Steve huffs a snicker. “You said it once to him, didn’t you? That you thought he liked being punched.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, but he put up a good fight,” he says. “That should make you happy. But eventually...eventually, they broke him. Crushed his spirit. Cut into his head. Scrambled everything about while he could feel it, hear it, see it. And how he cried for you to come save him. Begged for you to be okay.” 

Those cold, hard eyes lift and glare into Bucky’s. They once held sunshine. All the warmth Bucky could ask for. They’re ice now. Frozen over by time and pain and Bucky’s failure to him. 

“I didn’t know,” Bucky whimpers. “If I’d’ve...I’m so sorry, Steve.” 

“ _Stop_ calling me that,” Steve snaps, his lip curling over his teeth. “That is _not_ my name. I have no need for a name. I am a soldier. I am the Soldier.”

“No.” Bucky shakes his head. “You’re not. Your name is--”

“Steve Rogers, only child of Joseph and Sarah Rogers, born in Brooklyn, New York on July 4th, 1918. History of chronic illnesses, shall I name them all for you? No? Good. Because he’s gone and he’s never coming back.”

“Steve--”

The Winter Soldier moves so fast that Bucky barely has a second to register the fact that his metal arm has bunched in his shirt. When his brain finally comprehends this fact, Steve is already dragging him across the table and holding him a few inches off the floor.

“ _I told you to_ stop _calling me that_.”

Before Bucky can respond, Steve hurls him across the room. Bucky slams against the stone wall and falls into a heap of aching muscles on the floor. He spits the blood from his mouth and tries to push himself back up but can’t. Not just from weak, shaky limbs but because Steve’s knotted fingers through his hair and forces him to his knees. 

Once he’s up, Steve punches him back down again. And then once more for good measure.

“I can do this all day,” he growls and then drags Bucky back to the middle of the room. But Steve doesn’t throw Bucky back into the chair. Instead, he keeps him on his knees and shoves the gun into his hand. “Now. Tell me, Captain. Where is Nick Fury?”

Breathless and shivering and nearly beat, Bucky knows that in order to survive this entire ordeal he first has to survive this game with Steve. He lifts a trembling hand and presses the muzzle of the gun to his temple.

One to six odds.

Steve’s right.

That’s not so bad. 


End file.
